Here’s What Gives You Red Eyes in Pictures

The dreaded red-eye effect is the bane of any casual photographer. All you wanted was a sweet memento of your friend’s birthday party, and what you’re left with instead is what looks like a gathering of demon doppelgangers that plan to kill and replace your friend group. 

Thankfully, now it’s fairly easy to fix with the amount of photo tech available at our fingertips. Before, you were stuck with prints that had lost all their sentimentality due to a trick of the light. But there’s another reason that red eyes are seen so much less these days, and that’s part of the explanation of why, exactly, it happens in the first place.

So what causes the red eyes? 

Well, it’s the sins you’ve committed, and it shows the corruption of your soul. Kidding! The real explanation, however, is still pretty metal. First, you have to remember that the pupils, though we usually just think of them as black, are actually holes that allow light to enter your eyes. When a camera’s angle, in conjunction with the flash, hits them just right? You get a piercing look right through those organic pinholes to the retina in the back, which is red with blood. 

Those glowing red orbs are actually a tiny window into the blood that’s constantly coursing through your body, no mortal wounds needed. It also explains why they’re so rarely seen in modern phone photos, as flash photography is less and less common.